Tiger headaches get worse
By Melissa Ryan
realfooty.theage.com.au
July 11, 2004
Richmond was last night hopeful that the shoulder injury to skipper Wayne Campbell was not season-ending, but held graver fears for Rory Hilton, whose suspected anterior cruciate ligament injury could threaten his career.
Campbell hurt his left A/C joint late in the third quarter when he was crunched by Essendon youngster Kepler Bradley.
Moments later, Hilton landed awkwardly near the fence after colliding with Mark McVeigh. It is Hilton's second major knee injury. He was drafted by the Brisbane Lions in 1996 having had a knee reconstruction.
With a new coach to come to Richmond, Hilton - who has also had significant rib and shoulder injuries - could have a perilous position on the Tigers' list.
Both Hilton and Campbell will have scans, but coach Danny Frawley was reasonably confident that Campbell's shoulder injury would not end the skipper's season.
"I think it's two to three but that's too early to assess. He was a huge loss for us, as was Rory Hilton. The suggestion is that he's done his ACL," Frawley said.
"Hopefully that's not the case but we'll just have to wait and see what the scans come up (with) because he was starting to give himself a really good opportunity going forward and that will be really disappointing if he has done his ACL."
The 78-point drubbing was Richmond's equal-largest loss of the season. Frawley was disappointed that the poor second half undid their positive effort against the Brisbane Lions and let down club stalwarts Matthew Rogers and Duncan Kellaway, who had announced their retirements.
"We should have been four or five (goals) up at half-time, we weren't, so you've just got to make sure you make the most of your opportunities when you've got your opportunity," he said.
"We really did start well, we were hard, our tackling was fierce, we caused a lot of spillages and we were making things happen, and in the second half we were disappointing.
"To Essendon's credit, they've obviously got a lot more to play for with finals, and with Hird going down obviously they really wanted to make sure they stayed in the race.
"From our point of view we were really disappointed that some of the commitment that Duncan Kellaway and Matty Rogers have shown over their careers wasn't translated in our performance in the second half."
With three enforced changes to be made to the team with the absence of Campbell, Hilton and Rogers, Frawley said some players who had not performed yesterday might keep their position because of the limitation put on the Tigers by the injuries, but he would still have a good look at the VFL.
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